United in beliefs, divided in power

There are many examples of political leaders in the Asia Pacific region who have common goals, but personality gets in the way. (AFP: Mario Jonny Dos Santos)

Mario Jonny Dos Santos: AFP

"Too much hatred ... we will not forget the past. It is our history, but we have to be able to forgive."

That was not a comment about the current state of hostilities between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

It was East Timorese prime minister Xanana Gusmão talking about the Arab Spring and his country's experience in managing relations with its giant neighbour, Indonesia, in the years since its brutal occupation came to an end.

Gusmão has been visiting Australia, in part to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Timor in World War II.

The Japanese invaded East Timor on February 20, 1942 and in the months after that many Timorese assisted Australian soldiers behind enemy lines.

For many Australians, it was the first time they became aware of Timor's existence, even though it had already occupied a significant place in the country's history.

Timor was a regular port of call for ships travelling to and from Australia in the early colonial era.

It was to Timor that William Bligh sailed in his open boat after the mutiny on the Bounty.

For decades under the Indonesians, the East Timorese endured repression, intolerance and military rule backed up by murder, as well as relative international isolation.

In the interests of developing workable relations with a nation so much more powerful and rich than his own, Gusmão has had to suffer the slings and arrows from fellow countrymen and women who wanted to put senior Indonesian military figures on trial for war crimes.

Instead, East Timor and Indonesia established a Truth and Friendship Commission.

As Gusmão notes in his latest book, Strategies for the Future:

We were pushed forward by the strong will to move on by the determination to turn the pages of the past .... instead of starting legal cases.

And remember this: 100,000 Timorese died during the Indonesian occupation.

That certainly puts in perspective the aridity of the Gillard-Rudd contest over Australia's leadership bone.

Gusmão had dinner with Gillard at the Lodge last week, but just shakes his head and smiles beguilingly when asked his view of Australia's leadership shambles, but there is something of an East Timorese facsimile.

Prime minister Gusmão and now president José Ramos-Horta are old comrades in arms, but have had more than a few differences.

Today, Gusmão will not publicly endorse Ramos-Horta for a second term as president, begging off because the president "must be independent, must be accepted by everybody."

That's about as believable as Rudd's weekend assertion that he does not think he is perfect.

But if he does fail to return to the Lodge, there may yet be another role for him, should he fail to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations, of course.

British journalist and historian Timothy Garton Ash was mightily impressed by the Foreign Minister's performance at the recent Munich Security Conference where he called on the United States and China "to shape global values together".

...this will be the first time in 200 years that world will have a non-democracy as the world's largest economy. It will be the first time in about 400 or 500 year that a non-western country will be the world's largest economy.

On the strength of his contribution, Garton Ash suggested Rudd could be the man to bring together Barack Obama and China's next leader Xi Jinping.

"Xi and Barack Obama should now plan to take a joint summer retreat on the coast of Australia guided by Rudd, with a snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef," he wrote.

Full blown, Castlemaine XXXX mateship between Chinese and Americans may be too much to expect, but it is essential for them to open a frank, strategic conversation about global values and the foundations of international order.

Funny thing is, though, that what Rudd said is little different from Gillard's argument at the time she announced a White Paper into Australia and the Asian century.

She pointed out that it was new territory for Australia "when our largest export market and largest trading partner neither a democracy nor part of our alliance system".

And that may say more about the content of this leadership contest and what Gillard and Rudd are not telling Australian voters themselves.